A soft Brexit made in Scotland?

Open access: Ruth Davidson urged people to vote remain during the TV Brexit debate

June 12, 2017

Add together the Scottish contingent in the Commons – 35 SNP, 13 Tories, seven Labour and four Liberal Democrats – and you find a formidable bloc for Britain either remaining in the EU or at least in the single market or with access to it, writes Murray Richie.

Theresa May’s disastrous misjudgment in calling the Brexit election has paradoxically breathed new life into the Scottish Conservatives – and the bad news for the prime minister is that the Scottish Tory intake are mostly soft Brexit and single market supporters.

They will have an unusually strong influence on the government’s negotiations with the European Union (EU) on Brexit. Their leader, the personable Ruth Davidson, campaigned for Remain and now supports a Brexit that is “open” – her curious definition – but she is known to support access to the EU single market and the customs union.

Ms Davidson is the rising star of the British Tories and already talked about as a future UK party leader. Like Mrs May she can be a “bloody difficult woman”.

She is known to have defied the prime minister when ordered to campaign during the general election for the party line that no deal was better that a bad deal.

While Theresa May droned on about “strong and stable government” in the Brexit talks Ms Davidson concentrated on attacking the Scottish National Party (SNP) leader, Nicola Sturgeon. The people of Scotland don’t want a second independence referendum, she claimed repeatedly and the result proved she was right.

They didn’t. Or if they did, they did not want it any time soon.

The anti-Indyref2 cry was taken up by the three other Unionist parties until the chorus almost drowned out the “strong and stable” mantra as the election’s most tedious slogan. But it was a huge success.

While Mrs May was busy losing 13 Tory seats and her Commons majority, Ms Davidson was happily gaining 12. Not unnaturally there is now a feeling of immense satisfaction in the Scottish Tory ranks.

Scottish Tories are not known for obsessing about immigration.

The party is back in business after years of being sidelined and dismissed as a joke. The old one about Scotland having more pandas than Tory MPs is suddenly redundant.

Add together the Scottish contingent in the Commons – 35 SNP, 13 Tories, seven Labour and four Lib Dems – and you find a formidable bloc for Britain either remaining in the EU or at least in the single market or having open access to it.

Scottish Tories are not known for obsessing about immigration. The SNP has repeatedly argued that Scotland needs and wants more immigrants to meet the needs of the economy. That is another reason for all the major Scottish parties opposing a hard Brexit.

All this guarantees that when Mrs May – if she is still around – comes to the Commons at decision time on Brexit she will find a fresh and powerful new force against her and a hard Brexit.

Hard-line Tory Brexiteers will find life much less congenial, and there is not much they can do about it. Unless, of course, there is another general election soon and the Commons is reconfigured. But that is unlikely.

Going to the polls yet again would let the reinvigorated Labour Party’s dream come true. Mrs May or her successor simply cannot take that risk.

In Scotland there is suddenly an exciting awareness that MPs from north of the Border have relevance again. While the SNP had 56 of them until last week they did not achieve much as they banged their heads against a Tory majority. But all is now changed.

The SNP’s stance against a hard Brexit chimes with Ms Davidson’s words at a post-election news conference: “We must seek to deliver an open Brexit, not a closed one, which puts our country’s economic growth first”. She defined this as a Brexit which allowed the “greatest amount of free trade”.

To add another touch of horror to Mrs May’s Brexit nightmare there is the fact that Ms Davidson is no friend of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the prime minister’s new parliamentary crutch.

The Scottish Tory leader is gay and opposes the religious fundamentalism of the hard-right Ulster Protestants. She is about to marry an Irish Catholic woman and is deeply suspicious of the DUP and its historic links to Ulster’s Orange lodges.

But there is one area where Ms Davidson and the DUP might find agreement. She and they favour a “seamless and frictionless” border with the Irish Republic. A deal to keep the border unchanged would assist the Northern Ireland peace process, all agree.

Ms Davidson is so popular with the Scottish Tories that there are mutterings about her leading moves to form an independent Conservative party in Scotland. Some Scottish Tories always wanted freedom from London control although they say they would remain in harmony with most of the UK party’s ideals.

This suggestion surfaced occasionally when the Scottish Tories were in the doldrums, but this is the first time it has shown itself when they are cracking open the sherry. Ms Davidson has dismissed the latest speculation.

News Bites

May to hold talks with Merkel in Berlin
Theresa May is due to hold talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel as she seeks to make progress on negotiating Brexit. The PM will travel to Berlin for the meeting at the Chancellery. It comes a day ahead of a speech on Saturday in which she is expected to set out the “security partnership” she wants to maintain with the EU. The UK is under pressure to reveal more detail about the final relationship it wants with the EU. Mrs May and her ministers are setting out what has been dubbed “the road to Brexit” in a series of speeches. BBC news, February 16

UK aims to keep financial rules close to EU
The UK is ready to set out its vision for how it wants financial services to operate after Brexit and favours an ambitious “mutual recognition” of regulations to preserve the City of London’s access to the EU. Under Britain’s proposal, the UK and the EU would recognise each other’s regulatory and supervisory regimes and would have aligned rules at the point of Brexit, with a mechanism that would monitor any divergence. Three senior figures briefed on Brexit discussions in the cabinet said that the government will back the proposal, which is also favoured by Mark Carney, the Bank of England governor. Financial Times, February 16

Business leader warns May against harsh immigration policy
British companies are facing a recruitment crisis, with labour shortages hitting critical levels in some sectors, according to a business leader who has urged the government to produce details on a post-Brexit immigration system. Adam Marshall, the director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said the lack of candidates for some jobs was biting hard, and he warned ministers against bringing forward a “draconian and damaging” visa or work permit system. Surveys by the BCC showed that nearly three-quarters of firms trying to recruit had been experiencing difficulties “at or near the highest levels since [BCC] records began over 25 years ago”, he said. The Guardian, February 16

Lecturers want ‘radical’ tuition fee review
University staff are calling for a “radical” overhaul of tuition fees and higher education funding in England in a review of student finance. Sally Hunt, leader of the University and College Union, says the review must be more than “tinkering at the edges”. The review, expected to be formally announced in the near future, follows a promise by the prime minister to examine the cost of university. Theresa May said the review would show “we have listened and we have learned”. Ms Hunt, whose members are threatening strike action next week in a pensions dispute, says there needs to be a “fundamental look at university funding”. BBC news, February 16

Shampoo ‘as bad a health risk as car fumes’
Shampoo, oven cleaner, deodorant and other household products are as significant a source of the most dangerous form of air pollution as cars, research has found. Scientists studying air pollution in Los Angeles found that up to half of particles known as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) came from domestic products, which also include paint, pesticides, bleach and perfumes. These compounds degrade into particles known as PM2.5, which cause respiratory problems and are implicated in 29,000 premature deaths each year in the UK. Traffic had been assumed to be the biggest source of air pollution. The new findings, published in the journal Science, led to warnings that countries may struggle to hit pollution targets, with most tackling vehicle emissions. The Times, February 16

US rejects China bid for Chicago Stock Exchange
The US has rejected a proposed merger between the Chicago Stock Exchange and a Chinese-linked investor group. The decision comes after more than two years of reviews by officials. The tie-up was initially approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, pending further approval by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). But US politicians, including President Trump, have said letting a Chinese firm invest in a US exchange was a bad idea. Under the proposal, the Chinese-led North America Casin Holdings group would have bought a minority share of the privately owned Chicago Stock Exchange. BBC news, February 16

Labour gets 16,000 emails in five days urging it to consult on Brexit
More than 16,000 people have emailed Labour over the past five days, urging the party to consult members on Brexit after MPs said the topic was being ignored by its most senior policy body. The emails from party members will be examined by the party’s national policy forum (NPF), which meets this weekend in Leeds, and whose members include the shadow cabinet and trade union leaders. Labour has set up eight policy commissions since last year’s general election, to consult members and develop policy, but none focus on Brexit. The party has said Brexit is covered under the international policy commission, involving Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, but that commission is not at the moment accepting submissions on Brexit. The Guardian, February 15